


Everything Wrong With DC

by HandmaidenOfHorror



Series: Nonfiction and Metafiction Archive [6]
Category: Batman (Comics), New Teen Titans, Superman (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics), Wonder Woman (Comics)
Genre: Bigotry & Prejudice, Gen, Meta, Nonfiction, Racism, Sexism, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22016254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandmaidenOfHorror/pseuds/HandmaidenOfHorror
Summary: A follow-up to my Disney/Marvel/Star Wars article, I discuss the bigotry that seems to be inherent with DC publications. Spoilers to plenty of series.
Series: Nonfiction and Metafiction Archive [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1532405
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Everything Wrong With DC

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers to the following series and story arcs:  
> Superman: Grounded  
> Superman: American Alien  
> Superman: Year One  
> Teen Titans: The Judas Contract  
> X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga  
> Batman: Son of the Demon  
> Batman: The Killing Joke  
> Batman: The Cult  
> Batman #417 – 429 (storylines: Ten nights of the Beast, The diplomat’s son, Death in the family)  
> Batman: Under The Red Hood  
> Holy War  
> Wonder Woman – New 52 reboot of the character  
> Wonder Woman – 2017 movie

**Case #1: Superman**

There’s been much wrong done to Superman in last decade. Him asking alien refugees from a planet governed by a totalitarian genocial regime what they can do for America and only reluctantly agreeing to help them, despite himself being an alien refugee in the US, in the Grounded story arc, as well as a last minute removal of a Muslim superhero in the same story arc; teen Superman mutilating some criminals in self-defense in American Alie; and the most offensive development, Superman: Year One, where fresh out of high school Superman becomes a soldier and eventually joins a kill squad (literally called that in the comic) protecting American interests oversees – and the people said kill squad eliminates just happen to be stereotypically drawn and written people of color, most notably Somali pirates. Of course, the story pays no attention as to what could have pushed those people to become pirates in the first place. All of this is not only grossly out of character for Superman, but also directly contradicts the original intention behind the character: Jewish-coded refugee and genocide survivor who uses his enormous powers to help the powerless against people harassing them while maintaining a strict no kill code (even if he enjoys property destruction sometimes).

However, those offensive developments are unfortunately fitting into DC’s spirit and world view. Seeing those stories in wider DC context paints a very bleak picture which I’d argue is bleaker than the conservative and capitalist corporate agenda across the street at Disney/Marvel.

**Case #2: Teen Titans**

New Teen Titans were direct reimaginations of New X-Men into DC universe: Raven, Starfire, Cyborg and Changeling are direct counterparts of Phoenix, Storm, Collossus and Nightcrawler, while Robin’s more competent portrayal turns him into a counterpart of then-current characterization of Cyclops. However, unlike the X-Men, New Teen Titans are painfully normative: physical affection between same sex characters is mocked in every instance; the only Black member is kinda dumb and quick to anger; Robin violently objects to the idea of Starfire entering a political marriage that would remain on paper and generally treats her poorly for the whole duration of the series; Wonder Girl retires soon after her marriage (even though she didn’t plan to); and Terra’s bad girl status is first signified by the teen smoking, wearing make-up and having sex.

Let’s focus on Terra. The girl’s arc is one big Take That! moment towards fans of X-Men. She’s a young girl like the super popular Kitty Pryde, but she’s also a psychopath. Why? What is her backstory, her motivation? The plot tells the readers not to dwell on that, she simply is evil, there’s no point in learning her backstory. Meanwhile, the same story arc puts a lot of effort to establish male characters’ backstories for villain Deathstroke (whose violent actions while protecting imperial interests in former colonies fighting for independence are portrayed as heroic), his wife and sons, and even his butler (for half of the final chapter the plot grinds to halt to focus on why the old man keeps serving Deathstroke).

In short, evil men get backstory and sympathy, evil girls get condemnation and death, and killing people of color makes you a hero while killing white Americans makes you a villain. I honestly wonder whether Terra was made a foreigner specifically so that they can hammer on the association between foreigners and evil, especially visible in Batman stories of the period. Judas Contract mirrors plot developments of Dark Phoenix Saga one after one, but where Jean was made sympathetic and her death tragic, the narration is disgusted with Tara.

**Case #3: Batman**

Batman doesn’t kill, correct? Wrong. Batman does kill and kills plenty. And I don’t mean the early stories from the wartime period, I mean modern stories. Batman claims he doesn’t kill, because he tends not to kill Americans. Foreigners, meanwhile, are free to kill. Batman kills a Russian villain in Ten nights of the beast; several Middle Easterners in Son of the demon (where the villain is an extremely cruel and evil Chinese man who wants to destabilize global politics leading World War III just because) – sure, he asks League of Assassins members not to kill during a shared mission, but he doesn’t follow his own advice through the story; several people while brainwashed in The Cult, and he ends up preventing Robin from saving the man who brainwashed him when he was being killed by enraged former followers (remember this one).

Now, who doesn’t he kill? He doesn’t kill the Joker in Killing Joke, despite him having tortured commissioner Gordon and his daughter Barbara, crippling the young woman (who is given no characterization other than being a victim in the comic), even though the comic heavily implies he had killed Joker’s minions. He doesn’t kill a serial rapist whose crimes caused a young woman to commit suicide because he happens to be a son of a diplomat from a fictional Latin American country (yet another case of foreign villain), content with him being deported, not caring that he will continue his crime spree at home (Robin does).

In death in the family, the main villain is Joker, but in the meanwhile Batman fights Lebanese terrorists, Chinese mercenary Lady Shiva, and even the Iranian government (that hired Joker as their diplomat to kill the United Nations General Assembly – what a nerve to write such a story!). Robin’s death in the story is on meta level a result of him killing the earlier mentioned serial rapist, even though Robin had witnessed Batman causing deaths and knows from other cases that Batman kills; the narrative doesn’t believe the two characters to be equal though.

In short, Batman’s villains are often foreigners, and unlike the seemingly immortal home grown threat of the Joker, he tends not to have qualms in killing them. In general, he tends to stretch his “no killing” rule very far, applying it seemingly randomly, like allowing a man he holds a grudge towards to be killed while stopping Robin from seeking justice against a criminal who is not a killer, but has caused enormous grief and death. This informs Jason’s actions as the Red Hood – while he is often described as an anti-Batman, in reality he is the Batman of the 80s storylines without his hypocrisy.

**Case #4 – Wonder Woman**

Wonder Woman, in a series of incredible luck, has largely escaped the worst of DC spirit when it comes to the double standard towards women and racial minorities. Sure, wartime stories were very racist and the 2006 Amazons Attack! storyline played into sexist stereotypes, but the core of Wonder Woman has remained a strong, heroic woman who comes from a society of strong, heroic women. Until New 52, that is.

New 52 completely reshaped the Amazon society. They are no longer souls of women killed and hurt by men given powerful immortal bodies by Greek gods, they are women of flesh and blood that have to reproduce – which they do by kidnapping, raping and killing sailors. The retcon completely destroys the idea behind Wonder Woman’s creation, and Diana being unaware of it comes out as a naïve idiot – no wonder nobody on her island likes her! To add insult to the injury, she is no longer the soul of the fetus who died with her mother, given body shaped from clay and given life by the gods – she’s Hippolita and Zeus’ daughter, which in further stories turns into her being remembered as Zeus’ daughter and not her mother’s. This bleeds into the movie, where not only is her paternity a main plot point, but she also uses a sword and a shield instead of traditional lasso.

This development was not retconned back with Rebirth, and instead the authors doubled down on the idea, introducing Diana’s twin brother Jason. At the same time, Cassie Sandsmark was retconned not to be Zeus’ daughter but granddaughter, to avoid her being Diana’s half sister.

**Case #5 – Holy War**

Frank Miller’s works have always been far right leaning. The Dark Knight saga is a fantasy of a powerful man coming and saving the world by grasping it with his iron fist. The portrayal of the villains is pretty homophobic, and female characters other than Robin are parodies of themselves. It makes the series very problematic, but nowhere near the level of Miller’s standalone comic Holy War. Initially conceived as a Batman and Catwoman story, it has a pair of vigilates thwarting an Islamic terrorist attack in an American city, with the foreign characters being drawn and written in an extremely racist way – they are all hateful and fanatical terrorists to be killed or sheep in need of a white hero rescuing them. It was honestly the most offensive comic I’ve ever read and its publication should have banned Miller from every being employable by a big publisher. Alas, it didn’t, meaning that the people on the top of DC agree with his views.

**A short conclusion**

DC comics are bigoted in all possible ways and proud of it; Marvel at least leaves its bigotry to subtext and implications, but DC was never capable of such “subtlety”. I don’t mean everybody writing for DC is a bigot, some creators are significantly progressive (particularly in Young Animal, Sandman Universe and DC Ink imprints), but enough of people in positions of power in the company hold regressive views to continue publishing awful stories. And, unfortunately, it won’t change in foreseeable future.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been writing this piece of meta for a long time and I am glad I managed to finish it before the end of the year. Hope that 2020 will be less awful than this year for everybody!


End file.
